There are two things every Pentecostal, and everyone interested in Pentecostalism, should learn from the outset: (1) Pentecostalism is global, and (2) the global Pentecostal movement has many faces. These two aspects form the premise for the present volume edited by Hunter and Ormerod, a collection of 15 papers produced at an ecumenical meeting hosted by the Oxford Centre for Mission Studies in 2012. The volume speaks critically to the often narrow definition of global Pentecostalism and joins those who instead speak of “many origins” (Allan Anderson), “many tongues” (Amos Yong), and “many contexts” (Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen) to highlight the geographical, historical, theological, and sociocultural diversity of Pentecostal voices.

The volume consists of three sections: the first offers “Global Voices from Oxford” consisting of three prominent professors (Metropolitan Kallistos Ware, Paul S. Fiddes, and Wonsuk Ma); the second joins voices from “The Global South” including Connie Au (China), Yohanna Katanacho (Palestine), Elizabeth Salazar-Sanzana (Chile), Augustine Luvis-Núñez (Puerto Rico), J. Kwabena Asamoah-Gyadu (Ghana), Philippe Quédraogo (Burkina Faso), Clifton Clarke (Great Britain), and Olga Zaptometova (Russia). In the third section, authors from “The Global North” examine significant opportunities and concerns for different Pentecostal communities, including Latina/o Pentecostals (Daniel Ramírez), Australian Pentecostals (Mark Hutchinson), Anglican-Pentecostal relations (David Hilborn), and Canadian Pentecostals (Pamela S. Homes).

The editors themselves have wide experience in the global diversity of the Pentecostal movement(s). Hunter actively engages in ecumenical activities with the World Council of Churches, the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, and Eastern Orthodox Churches. As director of the archives and research center of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church (IPHC), he has occupied executive denominational and teaching positions. Ormerod, professor of theology at Australian Catholic University, has written on Pentecostalism and is involved in various capacities with Australian Pentecostals. A brief preface by the editors, and a short introduction by Hunter suggesting that “Global Pentecostals are not ‘Protestants’ and are not ‘western’” sets the tone for the subsequent essays.

The collection is coherent in themes, with each chapter focusing on a different context, while also addressing specific themes within those contexts. The result is not necessarily an introduction to global Pentecostalism but a snapshot of the diversity of Pentecostalism worldwide, including the difficulty to speak of Pentecostalism as a whole. In this sense, a difficulty of the collection lies precisely in this aspect to help the reader understand how to approach the different sections and contexts. The editor’s preface summarizes the chapters yet offers no guidelines for reading; the introduction highlights select themes of Pentecostal theology, albeit without establishing clear links to the present collection. A similar difficulty exists with the initial “global” perspectives on Pentecostalism in section one, which do not speak directly to each other nor engage the subsequent sections. Finally, the division of chief sections into “global South” and “global North” perpetuates divisions that, although factual, are counterproductive to the overall argument of the book by suggesting that there are, in fact, “two faces” rather than “many faces” of Pentecostalism.

This collection is a good start for Pentecostal ministers and observers to learn about the movement, the difficulties of its characterization and categorization. The essays initiate the reader into the diversity of Pentecostal voices, the chapters are brief and make for quick reading and reflection, and footnotes show a variety of international sources, typically in English. The text would serve well as an introductory reading for undergraduate students, perhaps paired with the Cambridge Companion to Pentecostalism (edited by Cecil M. Robeck, Jr. and Amos Yong), the standard Introduction to Pentecostalism (Allan Anderson), and the theologically oriented introduction, Pentecostalism in the Guide for the Perplexed Series (Wolfgang Vondey). Together, these sources suggest that the development of Pentecostalism worldwide signals the development of global Christianity in the twenty-first century. In response, Pentecostals would do well to reflect this global diversity also in their local contexts. When the local and the global meet, only then we can truly speak of Pentecostalism as the many faces of a worldwide movement.

Reviewed by Wolfgang Vondey

Publisher’s page: https://www.createspace.com/4448553

Philip Jenkins, God’s Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe’s Religious Crisis (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). ix + 340 pages, ISBN 0195313956.

The two books under review are part of what Jenkins calls “The Future of Christianity Trilogy,” which was begun with his The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2002, with second expanded edition published in 2007). (For more on Jenkins’ overall project, see also the periodical review of his “Companions of Life: A Supple Faith” by Tony Richie in The Pneuma Review 10:3 [Summer 2007].) Between them, Jenkins extends the analysis of his initial volume, first by focusing on Bible-reading trends in especially Asia and Africa (although Latin America is not entirely absent), and then by exploring emerging trajectories of Christian-Muslim relations in the European continent. Together, these latter two books provide a kind of template for anticipating future global developments, although our author is much too nuanced and sophisticated in his prognostications for alarmists on any side, even as he is too riveting in his narration for those who might be otherwise complacent about the present and future of Christianity in its global contexts.

For example, Pneuma Review readers might almost be able to read New Faces of Christianity as an updated response to the questions posed in 1994 by Harvey Cox in his book Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the Twenty-first Century (Addison-Wesley). There, Cox wondered if world pentecostalism would continue wedded to fundamentalism or if it might expand in other (especially more socially progressive) directions. Jenkins’ New Faces also begins with the question (the title of chapter 1), “Shall the fundamentalists win?” The rest of the volume provides a spectrum of responses to this query by discussing how southern Christians read and use the Bible, both Old and New Testaments, amidst existentially experienced realities like poverty, sickness, persecution and martyrdom, witchcraft practices, gender roles developments, economic crises, political turbulence, and other issues. And the verdict remains out: southern Christians are both more fundamentalist and less fundamentalist than anticipated, although in different (and perhaps surprising) respects.